Upcoming Events: The Arab Networked Public Sphere: Social Mobilization Post-Revolutions (4/27); Intellectual Privacy (4/28)

The Arab Networked Public Sphere: Social Mobilization Post-Revolutions

Monday, April 27, 5:00pm ET, Harvard Law School, Wasserstein Hall, Milstein East C (2nd Floor).

Join us for a round-table discussion on the networked public sphere and social mobilization post-revolutions in the Arab world. Researchers working with Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, the American University in Cairo’s Access to Knowledge for Development Center, Innova Tunisia and the Arab Policy Institute will discuss current research conducted on the evolution of the networked public sphere in Egypt and Tunisia.

The networked public sphere has emerged as an influential medium for sharing news, disseminating information, and mediating collective action. Many have pointed to the impact of digital media on politics and public affairs, particularly in promoting and coordinating popular protests. Digitally mediated collective action continues to play a prominent role in the political landscape in Egypt and Tunisia. Nevertheless, rigorous assessments of the networked public sphere’s impact, modalities, and relationship to collective action offline are still rare. In this session, we will present and discuss research that focuses on tracking and analyzing the socio-political topics in online content and their interplay with offline networks based on fieldwork research in Egypt and Tunisia.

This research is part of a joint effort by the Berkman Center, the American University in Cairo’s Access to Knowledge for Development Center (A2K4D), Innova Tunisia and the Arab Policy Institute.

The event will feature: Lina Attalah, chief editor of Mada Masr, a Cairo-based news website. She is also a research fellow with the Access to Knowledge for Development Center. Rob Faris (moderator), Research Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Jazem Halioui, CEO of Innova Tunisia and an entrepreneur with eighteen years of experience in bootstrapping and managing companies in Tunisia and France. Fares Mabrouk, Director of the Arab Policy Institute, a Tunis-based think tank. He also leads Yunus Social Business (YSB) global acceleration programs. Dalia Othman, Berkman Fellow and Visiting Scholar at MIT's Center for Civic Media. Nagla Rizk, professor of economics and founding director of the Access to Knowledge for Development Center at the American University in Cairo.

RSVP Required. more information on our website>

Intellectual Privacy

Tuesday, April 28, 12:00pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

Why is it bad when the government or companies monitor our reading or web-surfing? We have intuitions that this kind of surveillance is bad, but have failed to explain why digital monitoring in an age of terror and innovation is really a problem. In Intellectual Privacy, Neil Richards offers a new way of thinking about monitoring of our thinking, reading, and communications, one that ensures that our ideas and values keep pace with our technologies. Although we often think of privacy and free speech as being in conflict, Richards shows how privacy and free speech are often essential to each other. He explains the importance of 'intellectual privacy,' protection from surveillance or interference when we are engaged in the processes of generating ideas - thinking, reading, and speaking with confidantes before our ideas are ready for public consumption. In our digital age, in which we increasingly communicate, read, and think with the help of technologies that track us, increased protection for intellectual privacy has become an imperative. A timely and provocative book on a subject that affects us all, Intellectual Privacy will radically reshape the debate about privacy and free speech in our digital age.

Neil Richards is an internationally-recognized expert in privacy law, information law, and freedom of expression. He is a professor of law at Washington University School of Law, an affiliate scholar with the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, a member of the Advisory Board of the Future of Privacy Forum, and a consultant and expert in privacy cases. He graduated in 1997 with degrees in law and history from the University of Virginia, and served as a law clerk to Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

Economic Inequality and Technology: How Knowledge Sharing Helps

Tuesday, May 12, 12:00pm ET, Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett St, 2nd Floor. This event will be webcast live.

Today we feel the impact of technology everywhere except in our paychecks. In the past, technological advancements dramatically increased wages, but during the last three decades, the median wage has remained stagnant. Machines have taken over much of the work of humans, destroying old jobs while increasing profits for business owners. The threat of ever-widening economic inequality looms, but in his new book, Learning by Doing: The Real Connection Between Innovation, Wages, and Wealth, James Bessen argues that it is not inevitable. Workers can benefit by acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary to implement rapidly evolving technologies. Sharing knowledge is an important part of that process, including via open standards and employee job-hopping.

At this event, Bessen will have a conversation with Berkman Faculty Associate Karim Lakhani about knowledge sharing, past and present, about government policies that discourage sharing, and about the broader issue of slow wage growth.

James Bessen studies the economics of innovation and patents. He has also been a successful innovator and CEO of a software company. Currently, Mr. Bessen is Lecturer in Law at the Boston University School of Law. RSVP Required. more information on our website>

Frank Pasquale on The Black Box Society

Does the increasing velocity, variety, and volume of data make regulators' jobs harder or easier? Some say we are entering a "golden age of surveillance," enabling perfect enforcement of laws. But Frank Pasquale's book The Black Box Society argues that, at least in areas like privacy, antitrust, and financial regulation, big data can also enable obfuscation, stonewalling, and even fraud. video/audio on our website>